I checked out the trailer on Steam. It looks pretty slick, well polished, but I don't know about the actual gameplay. Looks like the typical Team Fortress/Battlefield "stand here and try not to get shot for X seconds to capture the node" model.
But that's just a first impression. I'll probably pick it up and give it a try.
<!--quoteo(post=1866065:date=Aug 3 2011, 03:36 PM:name=peregrinus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peregrinus @ Aug 3 2011, 03:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866065"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What the hell thats the same button.
Unless....both games hired the same guy to do their websites?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, I think it actually was the same guy who created both websites, just by coincidence. He's done a lot of Indie game websites.
Isn't this in the making since NS 1.32? They borrowed a good load from NS back then, though i don't blame anyone for that matter. All in all it looked pretty good, especially the atmosspheric leveldesign. But in my opinion it can no way compete to NS2.
If I was going to pre-order another indie title in progress it would be Hawken ( <a href="http://www.hawkengame.com/" target="_blank">http://www.hawkengame.com/</a> ), check out this stuff : <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a>
<!--quoteo(post=1866087:date=Aug 3 2011, 05:29 PM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Aug 3 2011, 05:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866087"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If I was going to pre-order another indie title in progress it would be Hawken ( <a href="http://www.hawkengame.com/" target="_blank">http://www.hawkengame.com/</a> ), check out this stuff : <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow, mech quake, I'm impressed. Awesome video except the last second. I hate it when people replace latin letters with cyrillic characters. Hawken - Hashken? Nashken? Nashkei? What's that supposed to mean?
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1866087:date=Aug 3 2011, 10:29 AM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Aug 3 2011, 10:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866087"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If I was going to pre-order another indie title in progress it would be Hawken ( <a href="http://www.hawkengame.com/" target="_blank">http://www.hawkengame.com/</a> ), check out this stuff : <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Doesn't look like you can preorder it right now. Looks awesome though.
<!--quoteo(post=1866087:date=Aug 3 2011, 01:29 PM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Aug 3 2011, 01:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866087"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If I was going to pre-order another indie title in progress it would be Hawken ( <a href="http://www.hawkengame.com/" target="_blank">http://www.hawkengame.com/</a> ), check out this stuff : <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Holy hell those graphics are amazing.
how do you embed youtube video here?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> wrong forum...this is the NS2 general discussion section. Try here <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showforum=10" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...hp?showforum=10</a>
And to Nuclear dawn, the mod was horrible, they fake images and stuff. (maybe the team changed...but it wasn't nice) (quote: <a href="http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-106777.html" target="_blank">http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/in...p/t-106777.html</a> e.g. "They faked screens and hyped their mod into oblivion. It's pretty funny stuff, if you ask me.") I don't think it will be good, it uses the very old source engine, which is now 7 years old, yeah, seven years old. I guess its like counter strike just with buildings, doesn't sound fun. but i could be wrong, i will test it on free weekend. I don't know but every new game which is released (by indie devs) using the source engine, looks so bad and i think the free mods are way better then the commercial games of the source engine.
Empires > Nuclear Dawn? And empires has vehicles and (has now) a small community and that mod. is FREE I can not imagine that Nuclear dawn or the EYE game will have a big community or much players.
Eh, another FPS game. They throw in resources and buildings, but the nodes are captured like they are in all other FPS games(stand in a spot for so long to capture it).. no physical building to distract you, same as any FPS game before it unfortunately.
<!--quoteo(post=1866253:date=Aug 4 2011, 08:16 AM:name=MaGicBush)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MaGicBush @ Aug 4 2011, 08:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866253"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Eh, another FPS game. They throw in resources and buildings, but the nodes are captured like they are in all other FPS games(stand in a spot for so long to capture it).. no physical building to distract you, same as any FPS game before it unfortunately.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, standing on a spot for so long <i>while holding e</i> is clearly the superior system.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
<!--coloro:orange--><span style="color:orange"><!--/coloro--><b>*PHASED.*</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> Didn't belong in NS2 GenDisc, moved to Off-Topic to join the two or three other threads about this.
<!--quoteo(post=1866249:date=Aug 4 2011, 06:43 AM:name=Price)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Price @ Aug 4 2011, 06:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866249"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->wrong forum...this is the NS2 general discussion section. Try here <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showforum=10" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...hp?showforum=10</a>
And to Nuclear dawn, the mod was horrible, they fake images and stuff. (maybe the team changed...but it wasn't nice) (quote: <a href="http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-106777.html" target="_blank">http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/in...p/t-106777.html</a> e.g. "They faked screens and hyped their mod into oblivion. It's pretty funny stuff, if you ask me.") I don't think it will be good, it uses the very old source engine, which is now 7 years old, yeah, seven years old. I guess its like counter strike just with buildings, doesn't sound fun. but i could be wrong, i will test it on free weekend. I don't know but every new game which is released (by indie devs) using the source engine, looks so bad and i think the free mods are way better then the commercial games of the source engine.
Empires > Nuclear Dawn? And empires has vehicles and (has now) a small community and that mod. is FREE I can not imagine that Nuclear dawn or the EYE game will have a big community or much players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Let's get this straight:
1. Nuclear Dawn started as a mod for Half-Life 2 2. For several years now, Nuclear Dawn has been under the direction of a new team who took on the project to make an indie game 3. The in-game screenshots, in the same process that pretty much all AAA games use for media shots, were produced by putting the character models into poses outside of their actual animation sets to make the game present better 4. The HUD concept was overlaid onto the Commander view to give an impression of what we were going for. Functionally, the programmer-art HUD and the one shown were very similar. The concept art was final and was the basis for art production on the HUD. 5. The Project Lead said and did some hurtful things to people online, making the mod and its team a target for abuse 6. 1, 3, 4 & 5 all happened while Nuclear Dawn was a mod and have nothing to do with Interwave
Trying to be a 'AAA' mod team had its ups and its downs, and eventually the downs stripped away at the mod and the team until it collapsed under its own weight.
TL;DR if you want to hate anyone, hate myself and the original team. Judge Interwave and their retail product on their own merits.
P.S. Empires is definitely worth a look if you're not a graphics snob and you're interested in the RTS/FPS co-genre
fmponeJoin Date: 2011-07-05Member: 108086Members, Squad Five Blue
ND had some very talented people, but having looked at a leaked version of the very original game under the lead of DaveL, I can tell you it was more or less a sham. The tokyo map by Sa7an (who is a very talented mapper) was scarcely more than a few scenes. The characters and weapons were nowhere near completion.
What I will say is that Robert Briscoe did his job very well and the map set in Russia was more or less complete, and as impressive as the screenshots indicated. I didn't keep the leak for more than a day or two, it was simply not even alpha-status. Mind you, this is after probably two years of work.
Don't let anyone tell you modding is easy, these were talented folks making this. Then DaveL left and I stopped caring, because maddened dictator that he was, the mod became less interesting once he left.
fmponeJoin Date: 2011-07-05Member: 108086Members, Squad Five Blue
And hello Crispy, I'll edit this if you care, but I think it was you who leaked me that first version. If you remember me, I think we talked when you assumed leadership of ND after DaveL, and I warned you there was no possible way you would deliver on the mod. No worries, it was not possible for anyone to do that, I don't think :)
Nice to see these commercial folks turning the content into something else entirely, but all the charm of the game seems lost to me. A shame, yet another failed but promising mod.
Respectfully I disagree with fmpone. I don't know what build you played but my emails indicate you were with us in 2007, when the playable version of the mod was in a sorry state.
<i><b>ND had some very talented people</b></i> - True
<i><b>but having looked at a leaked version of the very original game under the lead of DaveL I can tell you it was more or less a sham.</b></i> - Opinion, but I'll let you know why I think you're wrong. It's easy to call it a sham when it didn't release, but I think that term would not have been applicable if the rest of the map had been completed to the same quality, which was Sa7an's initial intention. I can't remember why he was unable to complete the map, but I'm sure he had his reasons.
<i><b>The tokyo map by Sa7an (who is a very talented mapper) was scarcely more than a few scenes.</b></i> - False The map was fully blocked out and Sa7an had detailed some areas (less than a quarter of the map, literally what was in the screenshots). All the resource points were there. It was playable, but received very few playtests once Sa7an stopped working on it.
<i><b>The characters and weapons were nowhere near completion.</b></i> - False - The Empire and Consortium character models and textures were missing around about the time you joined. These were both completed. - All character states had working animations, with only a couple of minor bugs that we could have shipped with - We had most of the weapons in-game, functional and with final textures, sound effects and animations for first and third person
<i><b>What I will say is that Robert Briscoe did his job very well and the map set in Russia was more or less complete, and as impressive as the screenshots indicated.</b></i> - Very true
<i><b>I didn't keep the leak for more than a day or two, it was simply not even alpha-status. Mind you, this is after probably two years of work.</b></i> - Opinion, and I can see why you think that. You joined really late in the project after severe changes to the game code and modes had been made. You were never able to play the 'true' RTS mode because, in an effort to make a release possible, it was dropped in favour of a simpler mode where you would just capture points, earn some personal income and spend it on bigger guns, while attempting to capture the enemy's base command point to win the match. I didn't agree with that, but it's what the leads (I wasn't one) agreed on, largely because it was the lead programmer who was going to have to do most of the remaining work, but also because there wasn't an up-to-date design doc and the designer had gone AWOL. A result of this was that the gameplay code had changed and some things had been stripped out, some were still in and other parts had been broken. What I came to the mod for was Dave's pretty solid re-imagining of Natural Selection, which essentially buffed up the RTS side to give commanders more interesting things to do (he was a reasonably high level RTS player and I was very confident in his ability to 'get' the genre). It's a design I still long for today. I played a prototype of that which included the following:
- Commander mode -- 3rd-person 'god' view -- Structure interaction (deployment, sale) -- Commander interface (drag selection, click selection, waypoints, attack order, hold order, menu selection of structures, tech groups, tech research) -- Programmer-art Commander HUD (everything above plus player names, unit health) -- Bots for testing basic Command actions (waypoints, unit selection, attack order, hold order)
- FPS gameplay -- Programmer-art Player HUD (ammo, health, weapon selection, obituaries, player names, structure health, minimap, cone of fire) -- Pistol, SMG, AR, Sniper, Minigun -- Custom cones of fire, spread & recovery for all weapons, changing based on player actions
- Class-based gameplay -- 2 implemented classes (Exo, Infantry) -- Different weapon availabilities -- Different movement speeds/abilities
- Other RTS Gameplay -- Game economy (single resource earnt through holding resource nodes with resource structures) -- First-person structure interaction (build, repair, use) -- RTS structures (infantry portal, command chair, armoury, turret) -- Full topdown map of the level
Incomplete at that time were: - Turrets -- Mainly gameplay & UI code for Commander control - Stealth Class - Stealth knife weapon - A few ranged weapons - Repair tool art - Fully arted/polished HUDs (Player, Commander) and in-game menus - UI feedback for certain player and Commander actions - Resource node turret upgrade - Other maps (!!) - Tech Tree (we had a flat tech tree with no branches) - A few RTS structures - Other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting because it's been 5 years
Some of the stuff off that list was completed. Honestly I think in retrospect the hype created such great expectations that internally we didn't feel like we could release a half-finished but playable build, even if it was fun to play. On the other hand it got us the kind of talent and publicity we had in the first place, so it was kind of an double-edged sword.
<!--quoteo(post=1866922:date=Aug 6 2011, 01:34 PM:name=fmpone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fmpone @ Aug 6 2011, 01:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866922"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And hello Crispy, I'll edit this if you care, but I think it was you who leaked me that first version. If you remember me, I think we talked when you assumed leadership of ND after DaveL, and I warned you there was no possible way you would deliver on the mod. No worries, it was not possible for anyone to do that, I don't think :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It wasn't me who leaked you a version. I'm wondering what version you actually got leaked, though. Spk & Jonte were the only leads on ND after Dave disappeared. I was just trying to reboot the project by bringing in new blood, and trying not to see the RTS side removed.
P.S. If anyone else wants to talk about the mod, please start a new thread, we should be discussing the version of ND that actually got released, considering it's an RTS/FPS hybrid with similarities to NS2.
<!--quoteo(post=1866959:date=Aug 6 2011, 11:42 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Aug 6 2011, 11:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866959"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What I came to the mod for was Dave's pretty solid re-imagining of Natural Selection, which essentially buffed up the RTS side to give commanders more interesting things to do (he was a reasonably high level RTS player and I was very confident in his ability to 'get' the genre). It's a design I still long for today.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Same here but I'm not convinced ND will deliver. Leaving the old ND behind, and only focusing on the ND being developed by Interwave, the RTS features look fairly standard to what we've seen before.
Check out <a href="http://www.nucleardawnthegame.com/blog/category/dev-diaries" target="_blank">http://www.nucleardawnthegame.com/blog/category/dev-diaries</a> (starting with "Power to the Empire" then going back to page 1) to see a little more info about the RTS side.
Basically every building needs power. The two sides each have different ways of powering. One needs power transferred between buildings by line of sight towers and the other uses a wireless range (think protoss pylons in starcraft) to power buildings within the radius. The side that needs line of sight for power is being portrayed as a group that relies on slower and more defensive play side while the other side is being portrayed as using mobile and ambush orientated tactics. It sounds like the roles are already defined which inherently limits some strategies making the RTS side potentially dull.
Furthermore, Interwave recently announced they were cutting vehicles from their game. I know that's the correct move for them (source and vehicles don't get along) but at the same time I can't help but wonder what effect that will have on the RTS side. From what I can gather, the commander in ND will be doing all the stuff the NS1 commander did (drop supplies, tell the team where the enemy is, research, etc.) but with the added requirement of having to place structures inside of power or lining up towers to transfer power. While that's cool, I don't think it's enough to make the claims they are making.
Also, I had the experience of helping Interwave internal test Stargate: The Last Stand. While I don't want to specifically trash any one person directly, Interwave could not have had a worse beta test for that game. Beta test began too close to the release date, the game was poorly thought out and designed, there we're major balance issues, and no one cared. I hope they learned from their mistakes with The Last Stand and I hope they cleaned out some of their development and testing team. Truthfully, they didn't seem like the kind of people who would sit down and analyze what went wrong; instead they just jumped into the next project.
Without AI units directly controlled by the commander I don't see how they will bring anything new to the RTS/FPS genre. I don't see how the RTS side will not feel diluted.
/edit; I'm going to copy portions of this to make a thread in their source forums asking why they think their RTS side will be different and not diluted. Hopefully a dev will reply. I'm curious as to what their answer will be.
fmponeJoin Date: 2011-07-05Member: 108086Members, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1866959:date=Aug 6 2011, 11:42 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Aug 6 2011, 11:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866959"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Respectfully I disagree with fmpone. I don't know what build you played but my emails indicate you were with us in 2007, when the playable version of the mod was in a sorry state.
<i><b>ND had some very talented people</b></i> - True
<i><b>but having looked at a leaked version of the very original game under the lead of DaveL I can tell you it was more or less a sham.</b></i> - Opinion, but I'll let you know why I think you're wrong. It's easy to call it a sham when it didn't release, but I think that term would not have been applicable if the rest of the map had been completed to the same quality, which was Sa7an's initial intention. I can't remember why he was unable to complete the map, but I'm sure he had his reasons.
<i><b>The tokyo map by Sa7an (who is a very talented mapper) was scarcely more than a few scenes.</b></i> - False The map was fully blocked out and Sa7an had detailed some areas (less than a quarter of the map, literally what was in the screenshots). All the resource points were there. It was playable, but received very few playtests once Sa7an stopped working on it.
<i><b>The characters and weapons were nowhere near completion.</b></i> - False - The Empire and Consortium character models and textures were missing around about the time you joined. These were both completed. - All character states had working animations, with only a couple of minor bugs that we could have shipped with - We had most of the weapons in-game, functional and with final textures, sound effects and animations for first and third person
<i><b>What I will say is that Robert Briscoe did his job very well and the map set in Russia was more or less complete, and as impressive as the screenshots indicated.</b></i> - Very true
<i><b>I didn't keep the leak for more than a day or two, it was simply not even alpha-status. Mind you, this is after probably two years of work.</b></i> - Opinion, and I can see why you think that. You joined really late in the project after severe changes to the game code and modes had been made. You were never able to play the 'true' RTS mode because, in an effort to make a release possible, it was dropped in favour of a simpler mode where you would just capture points, earn some personal income and spend it on bigger guns, while attempting to capture the enemy's base command point to win the match. I didn't agree with that, but it's what the leads (I wasn't one) agreed on, largely because it was the lead programmer who was going to have to do most of the remaining work, but also because there wasn't an up-to-date design doc and the designer had gone AWOL. A result of this was that the gameplay code had changed and some things had been stripped out, some were still in and other parts had been broken. What I came to the mod for was Dave's pretty solid re-imagining of Natural Selection, which essentially buffed up the RTS side to give commanders more interesting things to do (he was a reasonably high level RTS player and I was very confident in his ability to 'get' the genre). It's a design I still long for today. I played a prototype of that which included the following:
- Commander mode -- 3rd-person 'god' view -- Structure interaction (deployment, sale) -- Commander interface (drag selection, click selection, waypoints, attack order, hold order, menu selection of structures, tech groups, tech research) -- Programmer-art Commander HUD (everything above plus player names, unit health) -- Bots for testing basic Command actions (waypoints, unit selection, attack order, hold order)
- FPS gameplay -- Programmer-art Player HUD (ammo, health, weapon selection, obituaries, player names, structure health, minimap, cone of fire) -- Pistol, SMG, AR, Sniper, Minigun -- Custom cones of fire, spread & recovery for all weapons, changing based on player actions
- Class-based gameplay -- 2 implemented classes (Exo, Infantry) -- Different weapon availabilities -- Different movement speeds/abilities
- Other RTS Gameplay -- Game economy (single resource earnt through holding resource nodes with resource structures) -- First-person structure interaction (build, repair, use) -- RTS structures (infantry portal, command chair, armoury, turret) -- Full topdown map of the level
Incomplete at that time were: - Turrets -- Mainly gameplay & UI code for Commander control - Stealth Class - Stealth knife weapon - A few ranged weapons - Repair tool art - Fully arted/polished HUDs (Player, Commander) and in-game menus - UI feedback for certain player and Commander actions - Resource node turret upgrade - Other maps (!!) - Tech Tree (we had a flat tech tree with no branches) - A few RTS structures - Other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting because it's been 5 years
Some of the stuff off that list was completed. Honestly I think in retrospect the hype created such great expectations that internally we didn't feel like we could release a half-finished but playable build, even if it was fun to play. On the other hand it got us the kind of talent and publicity we had in the first place, so it was kind of an double-edged sword.
It wasn't me who leaked you a version. I'm wondering what version you actually got leaked, though. Spk & Jonte were the only leads on ND after Dave disappeared. I was just trying to reboot the project by bringing in new blood, and trying not to see the RTS side removed.
P.S. If anyone else wants to talk about the mod, please start a new thread, we should be discussing the version of ND that actually got released, considering it's an RTS/FPS hybrid with similarities to NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Interesting post. Very interesting. The one take away I hope people will get from this thread is that the original people who laid down a vision for this Nuclear Dawn mod game or whatever it ends up being, I have a lot of respect for and they deserve your dollars just for all the hard work that has gone into it for years and years and years. Unfortunately, new people will most likely be taking the efforts of old people and earning money off of work that is in part or in large part not theirs. That is a concern these Interwave people should address, if they haven't already. Now, I'm almost certain the finish product will not be good, but that's me.
As for your thoughtful post Crispy, I wasn't even aware I was on ND! But that goes to show you how many mods I did join in the 2000's, too many. Probably every single mod you can name I was a member of, out of curiosity more often than not. I was basically like an unnoficial media person, in the scheme of things. Most of what I can report about the state of mods I saw several years ago, including Black Mesa, Nuclear Dawn, Insurgency, the list goes on, most of them were negative. I will say that the media from Nuclear Dawn was by far the most impressive, in hindsight and at the time. Insurgency had its act together the most, and the fact that they released first should bear me out on that point.
Anyways, its basically a de-rail in a thread about the modern Nuclear Dawn, but there is a lot of interesting history behind the game that most people will never even hear about (or perhaps, give a ###### about).
And as for Sa7an's map, I don't care if he laid out devs or not, put in a flying circus or not, the work he DID do, was fantastic. You did essentially agree with me that it was just scenes, however. Some block-work or not, the scenes in the screenshots. He certainly could have finished his map, had he the inclination or desire, but I believe he was hired to work at Splash Damage.
TL;DR: Every HL2 mod was poorly and amateurishly run, and very rough around the edges for the better part of their existence. There was not a single team, for instance, with half of the professionalism of a NS2 team (although the comparison is not totally fair).
<!--quoteo(post=1866984:date=Aug 6 2011, 11:09 AM:name=fmpone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fmpone @ Aug 6 2011, 11:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866984"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->TL;DR: Every HL2 mod was poorly and amateurishly run, and very rough around the edges for the better part of their existence. There was not a single team, for instance, with half of the professionalism of a NS2 team (although the comparison is not totally fair).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Counterpoints: Dystopia, Insurgency
Ones I'm still waiting on: SourceForts, E.Y.E. (oh, it's out!), Empires (I know it's out, but it still needs serious work), Zombie Master, Eternal Silence (excellent except for FPS portion not being fun).
Most of the great modders realized they could make money going Indie, and so they did, leaving the modding groups to be mostly sub-par for the last several years.
Ones I'm still waiting on: SourceForts, E.Y.E. (oh, it's out!), Empires (I know it's out, but it still needs serious work), Zombie Master, Eternal Silence (excellent except for FPS portion not being fun).
Most of the great modders realized they could make money going Indie, and so they did, leaving the modding groups to be mostly sub-par for the last several years.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, I forgot about Dystopia. Good game, probably the best run game. As someone who was on the Insurgency team for a long time, it was not a well run mod, but the fact that everyone cared about it made it possible to release. The quality of the release, however, didn't impress me and plenty of other folks. Still, hard working artists and programmer and decent leadership <i>when</i> it was being run.
You made me think of Eternal Silence for the first time in a long time, as well. It occurs to me now that perhaps having so many skilled people fragmented across so many different projects was one major reason HL2 didn't have the mod success it could have.
Comments
But that's just a first impression. I'll probably pick it up and give it a try.
There was a topic like 6 days ago :P, even some dev responded to it.
All they did was change the colors, size and drop the ! mark. Way to re-invent the wheel on there end...
<div align='center'><img src="http://jodriscoll.com/NS2/nd-ns2-preorder-btn.png" border="0" class="linked-image" /></div>
Unless....both games hired the same guy to do their websites?
Unless....both games hired the same guy to do their websites?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I think it actually was the same guy who created both websites, just by coincidence. He's done a lot of Indie game websites.
--Cory
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
hawken looks sic
Awesome video except the last second. I hate it when people replace latin letters with cyrillic characters. Hawken - Hashken? Nashken? Nashkei? What's that supposed to mean?
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Doesn't look like you can preorder it right now. Looks awesome though.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo&feature=player_embedded#at=13" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEAEARD-Fo..._embedded#at=13</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Holy hell those graphics are amazing.
it is definitely on my radar now.
Particularly all those mini-guns at the end
another game with similar idea to NS2
<a href="http://youtu.be/FhpMOcv2fx0" target="_blank">youtube</a>
how do you embed youtube video here?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
wrong forum...this is the NS2 general discussion section.
Try here
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showforum=10" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...hp?showforum=10</a>
And to Nuclear dawn, the mod was horrible, they fake images and stuff. (maybe the team changed...but it wasn't nice)
(quote: <a href="http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-106777.html" target="_blank">http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/in...p/t-106777.html</a> e.g. "They faked screens and hyped their mod into oblivion. It's pretty funny stuff, if you ask me.")
I don't think it will be good, it uses the very old source engine, which is now 7 years old, yeah, seven years old.
I guess its like counter strike just with buildings, doesn't sound fun.
but i could be wrong, i will test it on free weekend.
I don't know but every new game which is released (by indie devs) using the source engine, looks so bad and i think the free mods are way better then the commercial games of the source engine.
Empires > Nuclear Dawn?
And empires has vehicles and (has now) a small community and that mod. is FREE
I can not imagine that Nuclear dawn or the EYE game will have a big community or much players.
Yes, standing on a spot for so long <i>while holding e</i> is clearly the superior system.
Try here
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showforum=10" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...hp?showforum=10</a>
And to Nuclear dawn, the mod was horrible, they fake images and stuff. (maybe the team changed...but it wasn't nice)
(quote: <a href="http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-106777.html" target="_blank">http://www.halflife2.net/forums/archive/in...p/t-106777.html</a> e.g. "They faked screens and hyped their mod into oblivion. It's pretty funny stuff, if you ask me.")
I don't think it will be good, it uses the very old source engine, which is now 7 years old, yeah, seven years old.
I guess its like counter strike just with buildings, doesn't sound fun.
but i could be wrong, i will test it on free weekend.
I don't know but every new game which is released (by indie devs) using the source engine, looks so bad and i think the free mods are way better then the commercial games of the source engine.
Empires > Nuclear Dawn?
And empires has vehicles and (has now) a small community and that mod. is FREE
I can not imagine that Nuclear dawn or the EYE game will have a big community or much players.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Let's get this straight:
1. Nuclear Dawn started as a mod for Half-Life 2
2. For several years now, Nuclear Dawn has been under the direction of a new team who took on the project to make an indie game
3. The in-game screenshots, in the same process that pretty much all AAA games use for media shots, were produced by putting the character models into poses outside of their actual animation sets to make the game present better
4. The HUD concept was overlaid onto the Commander view to give an impression of what we were going for. Functionally, the programmer-art HUD and the one shown were very similar. The concept art was final and was the basis for art production on the HUD.
5. The Project Lead said and did some hurtful things to people online, making the mod and its team a target for abuse
6. 1, 3, 4 & 5 all happened while Nuclear Dawn was a mod and have nothing to do with Interwave
Trying to be a 'AAA' mod team had its ups and its downs, and eventually the downs stripped away at the mod and the team until it collapsed under its own weight.
TL;DR if you want to hate anyone, hate myself and the original team. Judge Interwave and their retail product on their own merits.
P.S. Empires is definitely worth a look if you're not a graphics snob and you're interested in the RTS/FPS co-genre
What I will say is that Robert Briscoe did his job very well and the map set in Russia was more or less complete, and as impressive as the screenshots indicated. I didn't keep the leak for more than a day or two, it was simply not even alpha-status. Mind you, this is after probably two years of work.
Don't let anyone tell you modding is easy, these were talented folks making this. Then DaveL left and I stopped caring, because maddened dictator that he was, the mod became less interesting once he left.
Nice to see these commercial folks turning the content into something else entirely, but all the charm of the game seems lost to me. A shame, yet another failed but promising mod.
The lack of vehicles is honestly a selling point, I've never seen a game that works better because of them since battlefield 1942.
<i><b>ND had some very talented people</b></i> - True
<i><b>but having looked at a leaked version of the very original game under the lead of DaveL I can tell you it was more or less a sham.</b></i> - Opinion, but I'll let you know why I think you're wrong. It's easy to call it a sham when it didn't release, but I think that term would not have been applicable if the rest of the map had been completed to the same quality, which was Sa7an's initial intention. I can't remember why he was unable to complete the map, but I'm sure he had his reasons.
<i><b>The tokyo map by Sa7an (who is a very talented mapper) was scarcely more than a few scenes.</b></i> - False
The map was fully blocked out and Sa7an had detailed some areas (less than a quarter of the map, literally what was in the screenshots). All the resource points were there. It was playable, but received very few playtests once Sa7an stopped working on it.
<i><b>The characters and weapons were nowhere near completion.</b></i> - False
- The Empire and Consortium character models and textures were missing around about the time you joined. These were both completed.
- All character states had working animations, with only a couple of minor bugs that we could have shipped with
- We had most of the weapons in-game, functional and with final textures, sound effects and animations for first and third person
<i><b>What I will say is that Robert Briscoe did his job very well and the map set in Russia was more or less complete, and as impressive as the screenshots indicated.</b></i> - Very true
<i><b>I didn't keep the leak for more than a day or two, it was simply not even alpha-status. Mind you, this is after probably two years of work.</b></i> - Opinion, and I can see why you think that. You joined really late in the project after severe changes to the game code and modes had been made. You were never able to play the 'true' RTS mode because, in an effort to make a release possible, it was dropped in favour of a simpler mode where you would just capture points, earn some personal income and spend it on bigger guns, while attempting to capture the enemy's base command point to win the match. I didn't agree with that, but it's what the leads (I wasn't one) agreed on, largely because it was the lead programmer who was going to have to do most of the remaining work, but also because there wasn't an up-to-date design doc and the designer had gone AWOL. A result of this was that the gameplay code had changed and some things had been stripped out, some were still in and other parts had been broken. What I came to the mod for was Dave's pretty solid re-imagining of Natural Selection, which essentially buffed up the RTS side to give commanders more interesting things to do (he was a reasonably high level RTS player and I was very confident in his ability to 'get' the genre). It's a design I still long for today. I played a prototype of that which included the following:
- Commander mode
-- 3rd-person 'god' view
-- Structure interaction (deployment, sale)
-- Commander interface (drag selection, click selection, waypoints, attack order, hold order, menu selection of structures, tech groups, tech research)
-- Programmer-art Commander HUD (everything above plus player names, unit health)
-- Bots for testing basic Command actions (waypoints, unit selection, attack order, hold order)
- FPS gameplay
-- Programmer-art Player HUD (ammo, health, weapon selection, obituaries, player names, structure health, minimap, cone of fire)
-- Pistol, SMG, AR, Sniper, Minigun
-- Custom cones of fire, spread & recovery for all weapons, changing based on player actions
- Class-based gameplay
-- 2 implemented classes (Exo, Infantry)
-- Different weapon availabilities
-- Different movement speeds/abilities
- Other RTS Gameplay
-- Game economy (single resource earnt through holding resource nodes with resource structures)
-- First-person structure interaction (build, repair, use)
-- RTS structures (infantry portal, command chair, armoury, turret)
-- Full topdown map of the level
Incomplete at that time were:
- Turrets
-- Mainly gameplay & UI code for Commander control
- Stealth Class
- Stealth knife weapon
- A few ranged weapons
- Repair tool art
- Fully arted/polished HUDs (Player, Commander) and in-game menus
- UI feedback for certain player and Commander actions
- Resource node turret upgrade
- Other maps (!!)
- Tech Tree (we had a flat tech tree with no branches)
- A few RTS structures
- Other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting because it's been 5 years
Some of the stuff off that list was completed. Honestly I think in retrospect the hype created such great expectations that internally we didn't feel like we could release a half-finished but playable build, even if it was fun to play. On the other hand it got us the kind of talent and publicity we had in the first place, so it was kind of an double-edged sword.
<!--quoteo(post=1866922:date=Aug 6 2011, 01:34 PM:name=fmpone)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fmpone @ Aug 6 2011, 01:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1866922"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And hello Crispy, I'll edit this if you care, but I think it was you who leaked me that first version. If you remember me, I think we talked when you assumed leadership of ND after DaveL, and I warned you there was no possible way you would deliver on the mod. No worries, it was not possible for anyone to do that, I don't think :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It wasn't me who leaked you a version. I'm wondering what version you actually got leaked, though. Spk & Jonte were the only leads on ND after Dave disappeared. I was just trying to reboot the project by bringing in new blood, and trying not to see the RTS side removed.
P.S. If anyone else wants to talk about the mod, please start a new thread, we should be discussing the version of ND that actually got released, considering it's an RTS/FPS hybrid with similarities to NS2.
Same here but I'm not convinced ND will deliver. Leaving the old ND behind, and only focusing on the ND being developed by Interwave, the RTS features look fairly standard to what we've seen before.
Check out <a href="http://www.nucleardawnthegame.com/blog/category/dev-diaries" target="_blank">http://www.nucleardawnthegame.com/blog/category/dev-diaries</a> (starting with "Power to the Empire" then going back to page 1) to see a little more info about the RTS side.
Basically every building needs power. The two sides each have different ways of powering. One needs power transferred between buildings by line of sight towers and the other uses a wireless range (think protoss pylons in starcraft) to power buildings within the radius. The side that needs line of sight for power is being portrayed as a group that relies on slower and more defensive play side while the other side is being portrayed as using mobile and ambush orientated tactics. It sounds like the roles are already defined which inherently limits some strategies making the RTS side potentially dull.
Furthermore, Interwave recently announced they were cutting vehicles from their game. I know that's the correct move for them (source and vehicles don't get along) but at the same time I can't help but wonder what effect that will have on the RTS side. From what I can gather, the commander in ND will be doing all the stuff the NS1 commander did (drop supplies, tell the team where the enemy is, research, etc.) but with the added requirement of having to place structures inside of power or lining up towers to transfer power. While that's cool, I don't think it's enough to make the claims they are making.
Also, I had the experience of helping Interwave internal test Stargate: The Last Stand. While I don't want to specifically trash any one person directly, Interwave could not have had a worse beta test for that game. Beta test began too close to the release date, the game was poorly thought out and designed, there we're major balance issues, and no one cared. I hope they learned from their mistakes with The Last Stand and I hope they cleaned out some of their development and testing team. Truthfully, they didn't seem like the kind of people who would sit down and analyze what went wrong; instead they just jumped into the next project.
Without AI units directly controlled by the commander I don't see how they will bring anything new to the RTS/FPS genre. I don't see how the RTS side will not feel diluted.
/edit; I'm going to copy portions of this to make a thread in their source forums asking why they think their RTS side will be different and not diluted. Hopefully a dev will reply. I'm curious as to what their answer will be.
<i><b>ND had some very talented people</b></i> - True
<i><b>but having looked at a leaked version of the very original game under the lead of DaveL I can tell you it was more or less a sham.</b></i> - Opinion, but I'll let you know why I think you're wrong. It's easy to call it a sham when it didn't release, but I think that term would not have been applicable if the rest of the map had been completed to the same quality, which was Sa7an's initial intention. I can't remember why he was unable to complete the map, but I'm sure he had his reasons.
<i><b>The tokyo map by Sa7an (who is a very talented mapper) was scarcely more than a few scenes.</b></i> - False
The map was fully blocked out and Sa7an had detailed some areas (less than a quarter of the map, literally what was in the screenshots). All the resource points were there. It was playable, but received very few playtests once Sa7an stopped working on it.
<i><b>The characters and weapons were nowhere near completion.</b></i> - False
- The Empire and Consortium character models and textures were missing around about the time you joined. These were both completed.
- All character states had working animations, with only a couple of minor bugs that we could have shipped with
- We had most of the weapons in-game, functional and with final textures, sound effects and animations for first and third person
<i><b>What I will say is that Robert Briscoe did his job very well and the map set in Russia was more or less complete, and as impressive as the screenshots indicated.</b></i> - Very true
<i><b>I didn't keep the leak for more than a day or two, it was simply not even alpha-status. Mind you, this is after probably two years of work.</b></i> - Opinion, and I can see why you think that. You joined really late in the project after severe changes to the game code and modes had been made. You were never able to play the 'true' RTS mode because, in an effort to make a release possible, it was dropped in favour of a simpler mode where you would just capture points, earn some personal income and spend it on bigger guns, while attempting to capture the enemy's base command point to win the match. I didn't agree with that, but it's what the leads (I wasn't one) agreed on, largely because it was the lead programmer who was going to have to do most of the remaining work, but also because there wasn't an up-to-date design doc and the designer had gone AWOL. A result of this was that the gameplay code had changed and some things had been stripped out, some were still in and other parts had been broken. What I came to the mod for was Dave's pretty solid re-imagining of Natural Selection, which essentially buffed up the RTS side to give commanders more interesting things to do (he was a reasonably high level RTS player and I was very confident in his ability to 'get' the genre). It's a design I still long for today. I played a prototype of that which included the following:
- Commander mode
-- 3rd-person 'god' view
-- Structure interaction (deployment, sale)
-- Commander interface (drag selection, click selection, waypoints, attack order, hold order, menu selection of structures, tech groups, tech research)
-- Programmer-art Commander HUD (everything above plus player names, unit health)
-- Bots for testing basic Command actions (waypoints, unit selection, attack order, hold order)
- FPS gameplay
-- Programmer-art Player HUD (ammo, health, weapon selection, obituaries, player names, structure health, minimap, cone of fire)
-- Pistol, SMG, AR, Sniper, Minigun
-- Custom cones of fire, spread & recovery for all weapons, changing based on player actions
- Class-based gameplay
-- 2 implemented classes (Exo, Infantry)
-- Different weapon availabilities
-- Different movement speeds/abilities
- Other RTS Gameplay
-- Game economy (single resource earnt through holding resource nodes with resource structures)
-- First-person structure interaction (build, repair, use)
-- RTS structures (infantry portal, command chair, armoury, turret)
-- Full topdown map of the level
Incomplete at that time were:
- Turrets
-- Mainly gameplay & UI code for Commander control
- Stealth Class
- Stealth knife weapon
- A few ranged weapons
- Repair tool art
- Fully arted/polished HUDs (Player, Commander) and in-game menus
- UI feedback for certain player and Commander actions
- Resource node turret upgrade
- Other maps (!!)
- Tech Tree (we had a flat tech tree with no branches)
- A few RTS structures
- Other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting because it's been 5 years
Some of the stuff off that list was completed. Honestly I think in retrospect the hype created such great expectations that internally we didn't feel like we could release a half-finished but playable build, even if it was fun to play. On the other hand it got us the kind of talent and publicity we had in the first place, so it was kind of an double-edged sword.
It wasn't me who leaked you a version. I'm wondering what version you actually got leaked, though. Spk & Jonte were the only leads on ND after Dave disappeared. I was just trying to reboot the project by bringing in new blood, and trying not to see the RTS side removed.
P.S. If anyone else wants to talk about the mod, please start a new thread, we should be discussing the version of ND that actually got released, considering it's an RTS/FPS hybrid with similarities to NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Interesting post. Very interesting. The one take away I hope people will get from this thread is that the original people who laid down a vision for this Nuclear Dawn mod game or whatever it ends up being, I have a lot of respect for and they deserve your dollars just for all the hard work that has gone into it for years and years and years. Unfortunately, new people will most likely be taking the efforts of old people and earning money off of work that is in part or in large part not theirs. That is a concern these Interwave people should address, if they haven't already. Now, I'm almost certain the finish product will not be good, but that's me.
As for your thoughtful post Crispy, I wasn't even aware I was on ND! But that goes to show you how many mods I did join in the 2000's, too many. Probably every single mod you can name I was a member of, out of curiosity more often than not. I was basically like an unnoficial media person, in the scheme of things. Most of what I can report about the state of mods I saw several years ago, including Black Mesa, Nuclear Dawn, Insurgency, the list goes on, most of them were negative. I will say that the media from Nuclear Dawn was by far the most impressive, in hindsight and at the time. Insurgency had its act together the most, and the fact that they released first should bear me out on that point.
Anyways, its basically a de-rail in a thread about the modern Nuclear Dawn, but there is a lot of interesting history behind the game that most people will never even hear about (or perhaps, give a ###### about).
And as for Sa7an's map, I don't care if he laid out devs or not, put in a flying circus or not, the work he DID do, was fantastic. You did essentially agree with me that it was just scenes, however. Some block-work or not, the scenes in the screenshots. He certainly could have finished his map, had he the inclination or desire, but I believe he was hired to work at Splash Damage.
TL;DR: Every HL2 mod was poorly and amateurishly run, and very rough around the edges for the better part of their existence. There was not a single team, for instance, with half of the professionalism of a NS2 team (although the comparison is not totally fair).
Counterpoints: Dystopia, Insurgency
Ones I'm still waiting on: SourceForts, E.Y.E. (oh, it's out!), Empires (I know it's out, but it still needs serious work), Zombie Master, Eternal Silence (excellent except for FPS portion not being fun).
Most of the great modders realized they could make money going Indie, and so they did, leaving the modding groups to be mostly sub-par for the last several years.
Ones I'm still waiting on: SourceForts, E.Y.E. (oh, it's out!), Empires (I know it's out, but it still needs serious work), Zombie Master, Eternal Silence (excellent except for FPS portion not being fun).
Most of the great modders realized they could make money going Indie, and so they did, leaving the modding groups to be mostly sub-par for the last several years.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, I forgot about Dystopia. Good game, probably the best run game. As someone who was on the Insurgency team for a long time, it was not a well run mod, but the fact that everyone cared about it made it possible to release. The quality of the release, however, didn't impress me and plenty of other folks. Still, hard working artists and programmer and decent leadership <i>when</i> it was being run.
You made me think of Eternal Silence for the first time in a long time, as well. It occurs to me now that perhaps having so many skilled people fragmented across so many different projects was one major reason HL2 didn't have the mod success it could have.